Revealing the Tension Between Galleries & Appraisers

The new blog, Extraordinary Assumptions, started by former gallerist and now appraiser, Jay Grimm, has an interesting articulation of the tension between appraisers and gallerists to provide information to buyers, sellers and owners:

Indeed, many dealers have complained to me that they expend time and effort giving appraisers valuations for free, and then the appraiser (they think) simply turns around and bills the client after cutting and pasting the information into a template and referencing the gallery as the authoritative opinion. Having worked in galleries for over 20 years and having owned one myself, I confess to sharing this attitude. Most gallerists have stories about obnoxious phone calls from appraisers demanding immediate assistance, followed by a volley of intrusive follow up questions and desperate emails referencing their looming deadlines. I have my own stories: there was one appraiser who was unable to properly pronounce the artist’s name they were asking about and in another case an appraiser asked for a copy of a recent invoice to provide back-up for an appraisal she was preparing, telling/scolding me that my own opinion was not sufficient for her purposes. I suppose it goes without saying that these people are usually unknown to the gallery prior to contact and never heard from again.